Exploring Academic Reference Librarians' Familiarity with, Attitudes toward, and Use of Open Access Resources

by Grabarek-Matthews, Marion N.

This study presents the results of a survey that assessed academic reference librarians’ familiarity with, attitudes toward, and use of open access sources. The electronic survey was distributed using mailing lists and completed by 460 respondents. Respondents were generally familiar with open access sources, including open access journals, institutional repositories, and self-archived materials on the web. Respondents’ attitudes toward open access varied, but most agreed that open access resources are high quality and that open access would benefit authors’ careers. In helping researchers find open access information, more respondents had used open access journals than institutional repositories or self-archived materials. Compared to the number of respondents who had provided information to researchers about using open access resources, fewer had provided authors with information about publishing in open access resources.